


Rainbows aren't in style

by Simon_snows_pitch



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Angst, M/M, Pining, Pre-Carry On, almost canon compliant, baz pitch is gay for simon snow, gay angst, it's not mutual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-06
Updated: 2020-08-06
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:21:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25742755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Simon_snows_pitch/pseuds/Simon_snows_pitch
Summary: Snow is seething and it’s beginning to smell like burnt green kindling in our room. Should I stop? Probably. Will I?I wag my finger at Snow and tut. “Ah—ah—ah-NATHEMA!” I yell as Snow rushes forward and pins me against the far wall.I will not get a stiffy, I will not get a stiffy. I repeat it to myself like a mantra while he keeps his arms braced on either side of my head. He’s not hurting me, obviously, but there’s something in his eyes that tells me he’d like to drag me out into the hall and punch me senseless. What a brute.I’m far too gay for this.
Relationships: Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch & Simon Snow, Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch/Simon Snow
Comments: 10
Kudos: 72





	Rainbows aren't in style

“ _Fuck me_!”

Tragically I’d like to, even though Snow just slammed his thumb in the door of the en suite and swore like a normal. How he manages to remain appealing while displaying his absolute lack of intelligence is beyond me – but even an entire summer spent trying to wank my feelings away didn’t work, so I’ve resigned myself to dignified suffering. This year has gone no better, but in just a few short weeks I’ll be back at Pitch manor. Maybe I’ll give last summer’s plan a do-over— _from the top, with feeling this time!_ I do wish Watford could manage a few theatre classes.

I’ve slipped up and smiled at my own joke, and now Snow has taken a break from nursing his bruised thumb to stare at me. 

“I’m sure that even you can afford to stand in the fitting room at Harrods and watch men fix their cuffs in the mirror,” I snap. He narrows his eyes and his hand curls into a fist, which only encourages me. “Or—” I pause to look him up and down with as much contempt as I can muster (and perhaps I enjoy raking my gaze along his body more than I should) “—maybe they wouldn’t even let you in the door.”

Snow is seething and it’s beginning to smell like burnt green kindling in our room. Should I stop? Probably. Will I?

I wag my finger at Snow and tut. “Ah—ah—ah-NATHEMA!” I yell as Snow rushes forward and pins me against the far wall. _I will not get a stiffy, I will not get a stiffy_. I repeat it to myself like a mantra while he keeps his arms braced on either side of my head. He’s not hurting me, obviously, but there’s something in his eyes that tells me he’d like to drag me out into the hall and punch me senseless. What a brute. 

I’m far too gay for this. 

Realizing as much, I shoulder my way out from between his arms and try not to fantasize about him pushing me back to give me a gentle choke. (I’m the first to admit that I’m quite disturbed). If Snow even knew a fraction of the inappropriate thoughts that crossed my mind when he was around (and even when he isn’t), I suspect he wouldn’t choke me gently at all. 

I’m free of him physically, at any rate, and go back to adjusting my shirtsleeves and cuffs until they’re perfect. I’m tempted to reach into a box stowed below my bed. I’m not proud of it—not even for a moment—but I made a recent purchase that I both detested and wanted, much like how I feel about Snow.

I took a drive when visiting my parents a couple of weeks prior, not intending to go anywhere in particular. I ended up in some far-flung bookshop searching for the newest Outlander book and, when I went to check out, I found a pin. A gay pride pin, specifically. 

I don’t know why I bought it. It’s tiny and tacky—and besides, proclaiming to the world that I’m a queer would be boorish. I have absolutely no intention of wearing something so ghastly or poking a hole in any item of clothing I possess. And yet . . . it’s still here with me at Watford. I couldn’t leave it at home (I probably ought to have chucked it in the nearest bin), so it’s pinned to the inside of a small bag that I tucked in a box and stored among my other things. 

No one will ever find it. 

The clerk who rang me up was good-looking, but in a tragically me-like way. Obviously my poor taste has a habit of steering me towards poorly groomed men with far, far less wit than I possess. We would never have worked. 

The clerk did tuck a small rainbow bookmark into my novel when I wasn’t looking. It was inscribed with lyrics to a song I’m only passingly familiar with, but it was undoubtedly gay and meant to inspire coming out or being honest with yourself or some other load of bollocks. I did chuck that immediately—or, almost immediately, after I read through the lyrics once or twice. 

I shouldn’t have looked up the song on my mobile, but after the words got stuck in my head, I needed to make sure I had the tune right. Crowley knows it’s impossible to rid yourself of an aggravating and persistent thought without indulging it a little.

I glance at Snow as he pulls on his jumper, tousling his already frazzled curls. I think I’d like to fix them. On second thought, I think I’d like to fix me. Then he stomps past me and yanks open the door, obviously on his way to shove an unseemly amount of food into the bottomless pit he calls a stomach. The door slams shut behind him.

At least I can enjoy a few moments alone in our room, where his smell and his heartbeat don’t threaten to swallow me whole. Instead I can stare at his bed and picture my hands running through his bronze hair and pretend that that isn’t its own form of torture. 

I grab my wand and cast an **As you were** on my bedsheets. Then I begin to fill my bookbag, wand still in hand.

The damned song from the bookmark is still in my head, and I sing it quietly under my breath while collecting my books for the day. Better to get it out while I’m alone.  
_  
But I see your true colours  
Shining through  
I see your true colours  
And that's why I love you  
_  
My singing voice isn’t anything special, but I can’t help and put a little oomph in my words knowing that there’s no one around to hear me. Specifically, no Snow to listen in on me. No—the last thing I need is Snow scowling at me from the corner, crossing his arms so his shoulders look even broader than usual while he stares me down with those boring blue eyes.  
_  
So don't be afraid to let them show  
Your true colours  
True colours are beautiful  
Like a rainbow  
_  
It’s at that precise moment that several unfortunate things occur, which turn an already depressing morning into a nightmare. 

One: Snow bursts into the room like he’s being chased by another Chimera (not my fault)  
Two: I let out a sound that ideally sounded like a grunt but may be interpreted less favourably and more accurately as a shriek  
Three: Apparently I’ve put a bit more gusto into my gay singing than I anticipated and unintentionally cast a spell with some rather . . . _colourful_ results.

And by colourful results, I specifically mean that the spell has turned every single centimetre of our room into a tie-dye lover’s wet dream. One could only guess that a unicorn suffering from a severe bout of IBS flew around the dormitory at lightning speed to coat everything from the beds to the door hinges and even a stray cobweb in every shade of the rainbow. 

The word _mortification_ does not even begin to describe my feelings.

Snow interrupts my shame as he walks to the middle of our dorm. “What the fuck.” It’s not much of a question, and I look over to see his jaw hanging open (mouth breather). 

What, does he assume this was intentional handiwork on my part? As if I’d ever redecorate our room to look like a melted lolly. 

It’s then that I hear shouts drifting through the open window. On some level, I know that I shouldn’t look – poking my head out like a fucking numpty would practically be an admittance of guilt if I have done something to the outside of Mummer’s. But I also need to know what I’ve done if I’m to reverse it or lie about casting a spell in the first place. 

I walk to the window with my head held high, deliberately ignoring Snow as he gawks and blusters in the middle of the room, and then I lean out to view the damage. _Oh no_. 

The entire Weeping Tower is swathed in a perfect rainbow gradient. 

I pull my head back in, feeling faint. Can vampires pass out? I have to remind myself that now is not the time to address the top 20 things I don’t know about being a vampire. 

Snow, always determined to ruin my day any chance he gets, finally decides to look out the window. I hear him gasp – seven snakes, he’s such a child sometimes. Snow whips around and takes a step towards me, his eyebrows rising so high they might just disappear entirely from his beautifully freckled face. 

“What did you do, Baz?!”

“Shut up, Snow!” I hiss.

“I said, what did you do?”

“Do you think that I did this on purpose?” I yell back, my cool exterior slipping just slightly. This simply won’t do. I turn around and begin pacing, trying to decide how best to address the current problem. Snow is technically the only one who knows I’m responsible for the spell, and that’s only because he saw me cast it. I consider gaslighting him so thoroughly that even he would doubt what he’d seen (it might not even be that difficult considering he’s so atrociously stupid), but I don’t have the luxury of time. 

I’m desperately trying not to consider what exactly Snow thinks of me magicking everything rainbow. I’m sure even he knows that’s a theme in the queer community, but whether he’ll connect this colourful disaster to my being a gay disaster is still up in the air. 

And, of course, there’s the matter of undoing it. I’d rather the Mage didn’t find out about this, let alone identify our room as the source—but no, his precious Chosen One is going to rat me out, I’m sure of it. It looks like I’m back to the problem of making sure Snow doesn’t (or can’t) divulge my responsibility in renovating Watford. 

Methuselah, Morgana, and Crowley, I hope I didn’t magick the entire campus. 

I command myself to focus on how I might undo this, but Snow is stuttering his way through what I’m sure are more thoughts than he’s used to having at one time. I’m surprised steam isn’t coming out of his ears from the effort alone—and I tell him so. 

Heat rises in his neck and ears before he yells, “you absolute tosser! I—I—you did this—you—how did you do this?! Put my bed back!”

I pinch the bridge of my nose, compose myself entirely, and fix Snow with a look that suggests I’m bored with the situation. “I’m amazed you’ve even noticed a difference, considering everything about you is an utter mess and you somehow lack the basic observational skills afforded to infants.” There’s smoke billowing around him now. Perhaps if he simply blows up the Weeping Tower, it will completely overshadow the fact that it looks like a scene of a clown massacre. Why not stoke the fire? “Don’t fuss now, Snow, I’ll set it all right in a moment.”

And then an idea—a terrible and potentially perfect idea—rears its head.

“Actually, maybe you can get the Mage to set it right, considering you’re his charge.”

“I—what? Why do I need to fix it?”

“Well, considering you decided to finger paint the tower, perhaps the responsibility for resolving this issue should rest with you. Why the rainbow, anyways, Snow?”

“I didn’t do this, you did!” he yells.

I keep speaking as if I haven’t heard him. “Feeling particularly sunshine-y today? Find a spare quid on the floor and realized you were holding more money at that moment then you’ll ever have again?”

There’s a brief moment where Snow’s face flashes from confusion to anger to hurt, and it makes my heart drop. Why am I like this? I don’t have much time to ponder the question before Snow is once again barrelling into me, and this time I think he really might hit me. 

In a moment of surprising forethought, Snow yanks open the door again and shoves me into the hallway to tackle me in the stairway. It’s a risky move—we’ve never tested whether Anathema applies in the hallway—but apparently that’s a risk he’s willing to take. He aims his fist towards my nose, and I can tell he means to break it. Just before the impact, I feel myself flying backwards and see Snow is doing the same. We both stop just short of smacking our heads on opposing walls, and a furious Penelope Bunce stands between us. 

“He did it!” Snow roars. Apparently he’s not going to accept responsibility without some convincing. 

Bunce looks between the two of us and rolls her eyes so far back in her head that I’d feel genuinely impressed if I wasn’t also wrestling with gratitude and fury and embarrassment and the attraction (Snow’s curls are wild and his chest is heaving and it’s actually doing it for me in a way I’d really rather it didn’t).

She glares back and forth between me and Snow but adds in a bit more scorn when she looks my direction. “I don’t really care who did it—no, Simon, stop it—I don’t care, but I thought you’d want to know that several of the teachers are on their way here. I figured you might want help cleaning it up.”

“You can’t come into our room,” I spit. “Actually, you shouldn’t even be in the stairwell at all.”

“I plan to make myself scarce before anyone else arrives. You might want to consider an **As you were** or a **Clean as a whistle**.” With that, Bunce turns on her heel and strides away. 

I can’t believe I didn’t think of either of those spells straightaway, caught up as I was in my mistake. I can tell Snow is still staring daggers at me, and I indulge myself in another look at him sprawled on the floor, propped up on an elbow. He’s beautiful. 

“Don’t worry, Snow,” I say, standing up and brushing my shirt off. “I’ll clean up the mess you’ve caused.” Because whether he realises it or not, this is still all his fault.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for Soph to match her lovely artwork on tumblr! I will update with the url to her drawing as soon as I track the post down D:
> 
> You can find me @simon-snows-pitch on tumblr. Always happy to take requests!


End file.
